The adventures of Rocketo Garrison take place in a mythical future 2,000 years after the world has been destroyed. This volume tells the story of Rocketo's idyllic childhood and his early training as an explorer and mapper. After returning from the deadly Solarium War a broken man, Rocketo Garrison is swept away on a journey to the Hidden Sea: a fabled, dangerous land that may hold the key to undreamed of treasure as well as the truth about an ancient mystery.
This second Rocketo volume loses some of the pulp adventure appeal as it settles down into a battle-filled duel between two warring empires. Rocketo discovers more about the broken world (maybe the cosmic force that ripped apart the planet wasn't so bad after all?), but the dense world-building is ultimately confusing and, tragically, leads nowhere, since this is the final Rocketo volume.
The battle itself is fine and decently exciting, but Frank Espinosa's dynamic artwork really isn't suited to action scenes, rendering most of them incomprehensible. The whole affair rather drags on as the twists are laid on thick. I'm glad Espinosa was able to finish this initial Rocketo storyline, but this second volume mostly makes me sad he couldn't continue exploring the world after laying all this bedrock.
I feel like I have been promised more. But the whole thing has been dropped. Maybe he will pick up the rest in another decade after being tenured at some college and getting paid by Disney for storyboard work. I guess I should be happy with what we can get. For anyone that has not seen this, the artist usually sticks to about 4 - 6 colors per panel and only uses a brush.
i wasn't sure if i could make it through the second book, but i did, and i've started to appreciate the story telling a lot more on this round. it's quite a "classic" tale about adventures and warriors and honor, without an imperialist attitude i felt. pretty exciting art. try it out!
The finale of the series. This books wraps up the tale of Rocketo Garrison and his comrades on their journey. As with the previous book, it is wild and epic in its scale and contains a story of mythic proportions. Highly recommended.